Geo

Yeah, watch that your guitar doesn't get angry. Your bass is hijacking this thread!

I'm guessing you have a 25w iron. From my experience, you need a 40w iron to solder to a pot. That's a lot of metal to heat up. Also, lay the cone of the iron tip against the pot, not just the very end of the tip. You want as much of the iron touching the pot as possible. The last thing... having a brand new tip on your iron makes a huge difference when soldering to a pot. My tips always turn black and crumble away after a while. A brand new tip on a 40w iron will let you solder to a pot in a few seconds.

That's something really special. Your son will appreciate that guitar for the rest of his life! Great job!!!

Fabulous guitar. The neck joint is very interesting. And I LOVE that bass!!!!!

Yep, the flame will come out. Usually if you wet the wood with a bit of water you can see something closer to the "final" flame. Also, the grade to which you've sanded the wood will decide how much of the figure you see. If you're on a budget, you might consider winding your own pickups. Stewmac sells the stuff. http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_p...ups:_Parts.html Of course that's a whole can of worms, and there's just as much to consider as there is in designing a guitar. Looks good, the lightning bolt is cool.

How about an "O"-shaped route? http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...ct/100_5957.jpg I just finished that guitar and it sounds amazing. The sustain is much better than another guitar I built that's solid with a bolt-on neck. Of course, to comment on what the chambering has "done" to the tone, I'd have to build this guitar again without the chamber. But it sounds beautiful.

Probably not. That's a PCB for a preamp, which will get you almost no sound in a speaker without a poweramp. Go here for tube amp stuff. http://www.el34world.com/Forum/yabb2/YaBB.pl If you want to build a tube amp, the usual suggestion is to buy a kit from a supplier and build something simple like a tweed Fender champ, like this. http://www.schematicheaven.com/fenderamps/...p_5f1_schem.pdf That's about as simple as a tube amp gets. There, I gave you some links, you gots to do the rest yourself.

Probably. Try reflowing your solder joints. If you have multiple pickups controlled by a switch and pots, you can narrow down the problem. Is the problem only on one pickup, or on all of them? If it's all of them, the problem is past the point where the pickups are switched (between there and the jack). You may also want to find a diagram for the setup you're using and make sure you got the connections right. If you "hotrodded" it on your own (not following a diagram) and you don't know what you're doing, you may have several mistakes. Hope that's helpful.

I never was able to measure the neck angle on my plans or on the actual guitar because I can't find my protractors. (I have two or three!) It's a fairly steep angle for the bridge, though, and it couldn't be much steeper (although the bridge is plenty stable). The scale length is 25 1/4". If you're wondering about a neck angle for your project (I'm reading into it here)... it's best to get your bridge and then base your neck angle on that. @willy: glad you liked it.

Well, the guitar is MOSTLY done. The neck pickup is reading open, so I have to take it apart and fix it, and I haven't installed the truss rod cover; but otherwise it's finished! The tone is amazing. I need to do a little more fret leveling as it's a little buzzy in some places, but otherwise it rocks. Some videos of me playing it... Purple Haze http://s134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...nt=100_6806.flv Another song http://s134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...nt=100_6807.flv Some smooth riffs http://s134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...itardone001.flv Jazzy riffs http://s134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...itardone002.flv part of another song http://s134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...itardone003.flv This guitar was built without a drillpress!

Wow man, you've learned the hard way! "I lightened my touch a bit. Also, my results look a bit on the lumpy side compared to a machine wind. " That's probably why your DCR reading is lower than the stock pickup. You wound more loosely than a machine would. Also you used 44 gauge rather than 42, so that "ups" your DC resistance too I think. "I tried to wind as tight as possible but those first few attempts resulted in broken wire. " It takes a while to get a "feel" for how much tension the wire can take. I've wound a few pickups, and I use an electric hand drill clamped to the table. I adjust the trigger for a low setting, maybe up to 5 revs per second? (Not sure.) I guide the wire between the thumb and index finger of my right hand. I found that after a while my fingertips got moist and sweaty, so I put a little flour on them and it went very smoothly.

Really? U-Rods too? 700mm (27.6") is what is expected for a Cirrus neck. 590mm (23.2") for a Aria pro II CSB. These lengths are my guess as they don't sell parts or reveal specs. Not sure. Here's their site... http://www.lmii.com/ And the truss rod page... http://www.lmii.com/CartTwo/Secondproducth...ds%2FNeck+Parts

Strat looks great, man! For some reason I love the look of a guitar when the neck has been attached but it hasn't been finished... just some weird attraction I have... maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it.... Wez, I also vote for a double neck strat on that giant piece of walnut!

Dude, that is GENIUS! I'm amazed that it's mostly in tune after being reassembled. Great job.

Possibly. Use a multimeter set on ohms and check for resistance between the lead in question and ground. You should get a few hundred K (because of the pots). If you get zero, then it's shorted.

LMI will make you a custom length of any of their truss rods for no extra charge.

Does it work very well?

Try clamping a piece of wood so that your drill bit will emerge into it rather than into air. This seems to prevent chipout. Very cool project, man. I've always loved the "look" of the LP Jr. (black p90's, pickguard, etc.) Your Dean shape is a cool take on it. The neck looks great. The links don't seem to show any pictures though...

Yeah, you're exactly right. I adjusted the positions on the plan after I took that picture. In the original plan, I got a little carried away with making a headstock shape that complimented the body shape. I routed the neck pickup pocket and drilled the bridge post holes. After final sanding, I can start finishing! Body: http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...ct/100_6747.jpg Another view: http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...ct/100_6749.jpg Mockup: http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...ct/100_6746.jpg Closeup of mockup: http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...ct/100_6752.jpg

Thanks dude! I think Perseus could make a cool inlay. It's sort of a "long" constellation with a lot of clusters and stuff. Of course, no one would recognize that one....

Totally cool. It looks like you did a clean job cutting that up. I really like the asymmetrical violin shape.

Thanks guys! I'm envisioning more complex constellation inlays in the future. You could get several different sizes of rod to represent different magnitudes of star. Only astronomy geeks like me would recognize the patterns, but it could be pretty sweet. My next challenge is to route the neck pickup cavity. The end of the fingerboard will provide part of the template, so the jig that I make will have to be recessed from beneath. (I need template above the fingerboard for the first passes.) Probably doing it the wrong way, but oh well...

Whoa! I like the flame-bodied one and the golden glittery one. Cool stuff man.

It's been a while, but my semester ended a few weeks ago and I finally got some work done on this. Routing the neck pocket. http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...ct/100_6647.jpg Son, when I was your age, we used to cut our own fret slots... http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...ct/100_6665.jpg Planing the fingerboard. http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...ct/100_6713.jpg On a whim, I decided to "inlay" this pattern into the fingerboard. I had to stretch it a little to fit between the frets. If you know your constellations... http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...ct/100_6716.jpg http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...ct/100_6717.jpg http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...ct/100_6718.jpg http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...ct/100_6720.jpg http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...ct/100_6727.jpg Gluing the neck in. http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...ct/100_6721.jpg http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...ct/100_6722.jpg Heel carving. http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...ct/100_6725.jpg Bridge pickup hole cut. http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...ct/100_6726.jpg Back view of whole guitar. http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge...ct/backview.jpg Front view http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q119/Ge.../freontview.jpg

Try these guys. I got a blank from them that was perfectly machined. http://www.mammothguitars.com/bodyblanks.php